Whodathunk It? Romney Lies Like Bush!

When George W. Bush was president, comic genius Harry Shearer wrote and recorded Songs of the Bushmen that included “Who Is Yoo? (He’s The Torture Memo Man)” and “Turd Blossom Special” about Karl Rove. Also on the album was “935 Lies,” which chronicled the number of times Bush & Friends lied about the Iraq war.

Ever since January, Steve Benen has been keeping track of Romney’s lies on a weekly basis, first at Washington Monthly and then at Maddowblog. Although Benen does not keep a running count, anyone with a few minutes can add them up. As of Saturday morning, when Romney lied about what he’d said the previous day about the Blount Amendment that would allow employers to refuse coverage of contraception to women based on the personal beliefs of a boss, the candidate hit 856.

There’s no word out of New Orleans as to whether Shearer plans a sequel to “935 Lies,” but he could because Mitt Romney is giving Bush a run for the money. With two weeks remaining before the election, the Romney count is likely to soar pass Dubya, hitting 1,000 untruths, fabrications, falsehoods and bald-faced lies.

Romney may be the most dishonest man to ever seek the presidency as he tries to prove anyone can be elected with enough dark money and a total disregard for the truth.

Tone Setter

According to Benen, Romney’s first lie set the tone. On January 6, 2012, he cited a campaign appearance in Iowa where Romney said, “[W]hen the president went around at the beginning of his term and apologized for America around the world, it made us just heartsick.”

In between the first reported lie and the most recent, Romney has lied about everything. He lied about his tax returns and his tax plans for the middle class, Obamacare, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

He has lied about his military spending plans, Iran and Israel, the Iraq war and ending the Afghan war, student loans and Pell Grants, helping the needy, pay equity and women’s issues generally including pregnancy termination.

He’s lied about his budget proposals, the federal debt and deficits. Romney lied about his role in the Salt Lake City Olympics and how long he was at Bain Capital. He lied about why poor Shamus was lashed to the roof of the family car.

Worse than merely suffering a case of Romnesia, as Pres. Obama called it in a campaign appearance last week, Mitt Romney simply does not know how to tell the truth.

Hit Parade

The nonsense Romney spouts as factual would be breathtaking if it was not so scary and he weren’t running for president.

Romney said his version of Obamacare would cover people with pre-existing conditions. This is a lie. Romney’s plan only covers pre-existing conditions if someone has had continuous insurance coverage. This excludes tens of millions of Americans who have had gaps in coverage. They would not be covered by Romney.

Romney said his tax schemes have been analyzed and prove his claims. This is a flat out lie. The exact opposite is true, even the analyses written by the campaign’s own so-called “experts,” some of whom publicly called out Romney for distorting their conclusions.

Romney said the middle class has seen an income reduction of $4,300 during President Obama’s tenure. But government data only goes as far as 2010 and doesn’t show anything near that number.

Romney pledged that his tax schemes will be revenue neutral, and in February 2012 insisted that he would not take away the mortgage interest and charitable contribution deductions from the middle class. But at the last debate, he told a questioner that his plan would provide a basket of up to $25,000 in deductions and taxpayers could use them as they want. In other words, use it for mortgage interest but if you pay more than that – say, if you have a new mortgage where almost all of your monthly payment goes for interest – then forget about deducting what you donate to a food bank, your kid’s school or even your church.

The hit parade of lies seems to be a never ending story.

Punch Me, ‘Tagg’

Romney’s eldest son ‘Tagg’ made headlines last week by telling a right wing talk radio show in North Carolina that he wanted to “punch” Pres. Obama for calling his dad a liar. While ABC and USAToday used the word “joke” to describe the Romney offspring’s comment, it is actually typical of how the entire family has treated anyone calls out Mitt’s Mouth for its mendacity.

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell challenged Tagg to take a swing at him, reminding the 42-year old that O’Donnell grew up in a tough part of Boston and has thrown – and taken – a few punches in his life.

Unlike O’Donnell, I grew up in cushy neighborhoods of Milwaukee and Minneapolis, and have never thrown or taken a punch in my life. But Tagg, even though you have a few years on me, if you want to start taking swings I’ll be in line right behind O’Donnell.

Why?

Because, Tagg Romney, your father is a liar. Learn to live with it. His lies have been documented, week by week. He has lied throughout the entire primary and general election campaign. Your father wouldn’t know the truth if it bit in him the ankle.

Follow Charley on Twitter @SuddenlyHomeles. Posted: Saturday, 22 September 2012 Charley’s next book is about his experience being homeless. When published, he will donate a percentage of his royalties to homeless organizations.

About Charley James

If you are born in Milwaukee, chances are you're born a Democrat. So, I gravitated naturally to liberal politics as an activist and a journalist. I've been writing since I was eight and, after working in newsrooms for far too long, I have devoted much of the past decade as an independent investigtative jouralist. For much of the past year, I've been writing about homelessness - America's immorality play.

Comments

There are outright truths and lies and then there are simplifications. From their respective viewpoints, you might charitably credit both Obama and Romney with the latter. Maybe Obama arguably didn’t explicitly ‘apologize for America’ – but in the context of such actions as going to Cairo to make a speech in an Islamic university to a guaranteed largely pro-Moslem Brotherhood audience his remarks came across as implicitly and tacitly apologizing. Two years later, the reward for that was that the MB leader called for jihad vs the USA. In Iran, despite pro forma sympathy for the Green revolution, Obama exacted no price from the ayatollahs for their repression: instead his diplomats redoubled their efforts to send the message that, pretty please, we simply want to dialog with the ayatollahs and their chief ally Assad. In the Mideast – and elsewhere in the world where governments and movements are run by tyrants and strong men – any attempt which starts out by giving away with conciliation is interpreted or mis-interpreted as weakness and apology, deserving not sympathy but contempt. Obama and company should have known that. They still don’t.

No wonder you can not find a job, if I was an employer and found your writings on the net, I would not give you a job either. Two grown men joking about begging a young man to take a swing at you. How about stand in for the kid and you take a swing at me? Before you do, ask dick for his odds on your sucess.

The Body Politic

Dave Zirin: She is our Jordan. She is our Jim Brown. She is our Babe Ruth, calling his shots. She is no longer content to dodge bullets, but understands how to stop them. Serena is that rare athlete who has not only mastered her sport. She’s harnessed it.